asked, turning to Edward Seymour for approval.
“Quite right, Your Majesty, quite right.” Seymour smiled as the rest of the Council began to praise my brother’s resemblance to his sire.
“My brother,” I whispered, “though you do not know it, you have just stepped upon a snake in the grass.”
“Do not vex me with riddles, Bess, I have not the time for them!” Edward glowered impatiently at me. “Come, gentlemen,” he said to his Council and then strode, with them scurrying and smiling after him, in a pompous parody of majesty, from the room where our father lay dead.
Poor Edward, he thought playacting was enough to make him worthy to fill our father’s shoes, and those about him would do nothing but encourage him to ape the king they had called “Great Harry.” After all, playing and perfecting the part would consume much of Edward’s attention, leaving them free to rule the realm as they pleased. It was as if they had taken a portrait of our father down from the wall, cut out the face, and bade Edward stand behind it, with his face poked through, parroting the lines they whispered, like a prompter in a theater helping the actors to remember their lines. Edward would never be encouraged or allowed to be himself. He would grow up always pretending to be somebody else and in doing so would lose himself before he even knew who he truly was; that was the real tragedy of his life and reign.
5
Mary
I n mourning for Father, I withdrew to the country to live quietly, though always in tense and wary expectation of the storm I expected to break at any moment when my brother and the hell-bound heretics who ruled him would officially outlaw the practice of the true religion in England.
Before he bade me farewell, Edward, with the Lord Protector, Edward Seymour, standing solidly behind him, told me that it was his dearest wish that I would purge my soul of Popish superstitions and cast out of my life all the Papist accoutrements and furbelows that went with it—the rosaries, crucifixes, chalices, candles, plaster saints, holy water, wafers, wine, relics, and censers, and such—and hear the word of God spoken in our own plain, good, wholesome, and unadorned English tongue, rather than the Latin that was the language of priests and scholars and mystified and muddled the minds of the unschooled and ignorant common people, making God more of an aloof stranger and mystery than a real and true presence in their lives. For what good were prayers learned by rote, phonetically, so that those uttering them could not understand? God and His Church did not need to be painted and perfumed and dressed up like a courtesan to be worshiped, Edward stoutly and pompously maintained, striking our father’s favorite pose and standing with his hands on his hips and feet planted wide. Better that it be plain and unvarnished, he continued, and nothing but the pure and naked truth.
I was horrified to hear my brother comparing my Church to harlotry, and I could not put the shame and fear I felt for his soul into words; I was struck dumb with horror. I was so disappointed in him that I was glad to quit his presence, though not prepared to give up the fight to save his soul; it was clear that Edward needed me. But I knew now was not the time to argue, and that I must choose my battles with care, for if I were defeated at the very start I would fail God and the great work He had saved me for, and Edward’s soul would be just one of the many that would be lost.
Though Edward liked to think otherwise, I knew my brother, though he now bore the title of “king,” and “Supreme Head of the Church of England,” was in reality only a little boy of nine, a child, and as such incapable of making decisions about such monumental matters as religion; he could not even govern himself, much less the consciences of others. I knew these thoughts were being put into his head, and these words, these blasphemies, put into his mouth by greedy,
“Quite right, Your Majesty, quite right.” Seymour smiled as the rest of the Council began to praise my brother’s resemblance to his sire.
“My brother,” I whispered, “though you do not know it, you have just stepped upon a snake in the grass.”
“Do not vex me with riddles, Bess, I have not the time for them!” Edward glowered impatiently at me. “Come, gentlemen,” he said to his Council and then strode, with them scurrying and smiling after him, in a pompous parody of majesty, from the room where our father lay dead.
Poor Edward, he thought playacting was enough to make him worthy to fill our father’s shoes, and those about him would do nothing but encourage him to ape the king they had called “Great Harry.” After all, playing and perfecting the part would consume much of Edward’s attention, leaving them free to rule the realm as they pleased. It was as if they had taken a portrait of our father down from the wall, cut out the face, and bade Edward stand behind it, with his face poked through, parroting the lines they whispered, like a prompter in a theater helping the actors to remember their lines. Edward would never be encouraged or allowed to be himself. He would grow up always pretending to be somebody else and in doing so would lose himself before he even knew who he truly was; that was the real tragedy of his life and reign.
5
Mary
I n mourning for Father, I withdrew to the country to live quietly, though always in tense and wary expectation of the storm I expected to break at any moment when my brother and the hell-bound heretics who ruled him would officially outlaw the practice of the true religion in England.
Before he bade me farewell, Edward, with the Lord Protector, Edward Seymour, standing solidly behind him, told me that it was his dearest wish that I would purge my soul of Popish superstitions and cast out of my life all the Papist accoutrements and furbelows that went with it—the rosaries, crucifixes, chalices, candles, plaster saints, holy water, wafers, wine, relics, and censers, and such—and hear the word of God spoken in our own plain, good, wholesome, and unadorned English tongue, rather than the Latin that was the language of priests and scholars and mystified and muddled the minds of the unschooled and ignorant common people, making God more of an aloof stranger and mystery than a real and true presence in their lives. For what good were prayers learned by rote, phonetically, so that those uttering them could not understand? God and His Church did not need to be painted and perfumed and dressed up like a courtesan to be worshiped, Edward stoutly and pompously maintained, striking our father’s favorite pose and standing with his hands on his hips and feet planted wide. Better that it be plain and unvarnished, he continued, and nothing but the pure and naked truth.
I was horrified to hear my brother comparing my Church to harlotry, and I could not put the shame and fear I felt for his soul into words; I was struck dumb with horror. I was so disappointed in him that I was glad to quit his presence, though not prepared to give up the fight to save his soul; it was clear that Edward needed me. But I knew now was not the time to argue, and that I must choose my battles with care, for if I were defeated at the very start I would fail God and the great work He had saved me for, and Edward’s soul would be just one of the many that would be lost.
Though Edward liked to think otherwise, I knew my brother, though he now bore the title of “king,” and “Supreme Head of the Church of England,” was in reality only a little boy of nine, a child, and as such incapable of making decisions about such monumental matters as religion; he could not even govern himself, much less the consciences of others. I knew these thoughts were being put into his head, and these words, these blasphemies, put into his mouth by greedy,
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